Little Girls or Dagger of the Mind -- which do you like better

That's a nice safety feature for a very dangerous device, BTW: a light that says "off" when lit.

Makes perfect sense. This machine should never be on by accident. You can see from a safe distance if the big light is not glowing, and then something is wrong: either the machine is accidentally on, or then the light has burned out. That's much safer than having a light that says "on" when lit, because a burned-out light might then hide the fact that the machine is active and dangerous!

But Korby wasn't really alive to begin with: "Doctor Korby was never here." That turned out to be the whole point.

My favorite part of "Little Girls" was the shot of Christine Chapel the first instant she sees Korby - say what you will about Ms. Barrett's acting ability, she manages in those few wordless seconds to convey Christine's feeling at that moment such that it really comes through the TV screen.

On the whole I prefer "Dagger" because it's a better story and because Adams is a genuinely evil guy. (Mr. Gregory is also great in the Night Gallery segment "Stop Killing Me" with Geraldine Page.)

That's a nice safety feature for a very dangerous device, BTW: a light that says "off" when lit.

Makes perfect sense. This machine should never be on by accident. You can see from a safe distance if the big light is not glowing, and then something is wrong: either the machine is accidentally on, or then the light has burned out. That's much safer than having a light that says "on" when lit, because a burned-out light might then hide the fact that the machine is active and dangerous!

I credit Mister Atoz with some fine observations where these two similar episodes are concerned, but if I were to make a serious choice I'd have to go with Dagger of the Mind by a very very close margin.

Both had excellent guest stars. One had the spinning light while the other had the spinning bed. Both featured perhaps two of the sexiest, most alluring characters in the entire series. The tie breaker for me is Spock. In one he was an after thought and a dimensionless device for "discovery" whereas in the other, we learned something very important about Vulcans and there was added color as the layers of deceit were uncovered.

Flipping back to "What are Little Girls Made Of".....we got one last cherished look at the old style phasers.

Too bad Eddie Paskey didn't really figure into either of these episodes. Seeing him in a given episode helps me keep it real.

But Korby wasn't really alive to begin with: "Doctor Korby was never here." That turned out to be the whole point.

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How much of that is true, and how much just Chapel's racist revulsion at the concept of Korby having replaced his body with machinery? Certainly Korby was "there" to a significant degree, passing the Turing test with flying colors, demonstrating the full factual knowledge of the man, and behaving like one would expect from a man like that if one didn't know him intimately. And Chapel knowing him intimately might make her eminently unqualified to utter insults like that. (Okay, it's Kirk's rephrasing of something Chapel said earlier on, but still.)

... and behaving like one would expect from a man like that if one didn't know him intimately. And Chapel knowing him intimately might make her eminently unqualified to utter insults like that.

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That's having it both ways. If it takes someone who knows him intimately to tell the difference, and if knowing him intimately disqualifies an observer, then we might as well just replace everybody with androids that are "close enough" to the original. Any difference doesn't matter.

We have to defer to the person who knows him intimately, even if we wonder about their judgment.

~ The question is not whether or not an android can pass the turing test or can be detected to be a machine. The question WALGMO begs is ....can a machine have consciousness? And Korby zeroes in on the problem -- proving it.

How can one prove or disprove consciousness? I'll go one step further -- there's no way to prove that living things are "conscious". From a scientific standpoint,we're all just grey matter with blood running through it. So what? What does that prove? (as McCoy said, we're all just 3 or 4 pounds of chemicals -- just add water.)

It's a religious question. Why are WE "conscious" and yet an android with all the sense organs, all the same memory we have -- why is such a machine NOT conscious? Can it be proved or disproved? This is the much more compelling question behind "Little Girls".

... and behaving like one would expect from a man like that if one didn't know him intimately. And Chapel knowing him intimately might make her eminently unqualified to utter insults like that.

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That's having it both ways. If it takes someone who knows him intimately to tell the difference, and if knowing him intimately disqualifies an observer, then we might as well just replace everybody with androids that are "close enough" to the original. Any difference doesn't matter.

We have to defer to the person who knows him intimately, even if we wonder about their judgment.

We have to defer to the person who knows him intimately, even if we wonder about their judgment.

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Why? If A says that B is an asshole, this may well be an objective fact if A isn't B's embittered lover, but is highly unlikely to be objectively true in the opposite case. Insults are an extremely unreliable type of evaluation...

Had, say, Brown lived to tell the tale, we might have trusted his judgement a bit better, as passions (in a 1960s TV show) wouldn't run as high between these two males unless we were given hints of a love triangle or some such.

There's a reason why self-evaluation isn't a popular business practice, and why outside consulting services are valued!

Dr. Korby wasn't there. Only a shadow of his former self. What's so "perfect" about this moment in the episode, is when Roger kills himself along with Andrea. This less than human version of himself still has some of the flesh-and-blood Roger's mind... enough to realize that in becoming an android he had indeed lost himself. To what end? He realized that he could never be his original self. Christine could see right through him. Now he was nothing more than a machine. And so he self terminated.

By the same token, could Kirk prove to Korby that HE was not just intelligent, but also conscious? How would he do it?

~ Atoz

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Either Korby was too far gone when he made the transfer, or the transfer is imperfect OR he went cookoo waiting on a ship to come by.

1) "I'll hold the Captain prisoner, show him my work and expect him to surreptiously help me build more androids so they can infiltrate society, AND at some point push my agenda for people to project themselves into androids. Then we'll program out everything *I* think is harmful." ...that's a little crazy. Also:

2) Christine said he wouldn't harm a fly. But at the end when everything is falling apart, he gives Andrea a weapon and tells her to go kill whoever is in the outer junction.

Personally I still think the tragic resonance of the ep is "Dr. Korby isn't here. He never was." And we as viewers taking in that all that was left of that civilization is gone now.

Dale, what I'm saying is, there's no way to prove humans OR androids are conscious. Conscious awareness cannot be proven. It can only be believed. You can prove intelligence by giving a Turing Test, but you can't prove conscious awareness.

Korby can ask the REAL captain Kirk if Kirk has conscious awareness. There's no way Jim Kirk can prove it to Korby, either.. NOW, do you understand?? ;o)

By the same token, could Kirk prove to Korby that HE was not just intelligent, but also conscious? How would he do it?

~ Atoz

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Either Korby was too far gone when he made the transfer, or the transfer is imperfect OR he went cookoo waiting on a ship to come by.

1) "I'll hold the Captain prisoner, show him my work and expect him to surreptiously help me build more androids so they can infiltrate society, AND at some point push my agenda for people to project themselves into androids. Then we'll program out everything *I* think is harmful." ...that's a little crazy. Also:

2) Christine said he wouldn't harm a fly. But at the end when everything is falling apart, he gives Andrea a weapon and tells her to go kill whoever is in the outer junction.

Personally I still think the tragic resonance of the ep is "Dr. Korby isn't here. He never was." And we as viewers taking in that all that was left of that civilization is gone now.

I believe that there is a sensible way to prove consciousness. If a freshly made android (computer in humanoid shaped body) could develop self interests beyond the basics (more than just survival and prosperity) and empathy/compassion for sentient beings without having beneficial dependencies to itself, all self learned (without any programming assistance), I'd feel safe in calling it sentient. We actually run on a biologically formed program that was initially written by our genetic coding and then has been continually augmented from the moment of birth up through every living day. We are directly taught some things, but a majority of what we learn is all about self interpretation of incoming stimulus.

Dr. Korby was sentient. But I believe he discovered that he had lost some of his essence. He became aware that his "soul" hadn't carried over, making him a mere copy. His consciousness was mostly copied, but not completely transferred. That's my take on it... I'm not saying it's fact, because the episode is too ambiguous for a definitive answer.

I believe that there is a sensible way to prove consciousness. If a freshly made android (computer in humanoid shaped body) could develop self interests beyond the basics (more than just survival and prosperity) and empathy/compassion for sentient beings without having beneficial dependencies to itself, all self learned (without any programming assistance), I'd feel safe in calling it sentient. We actually run on a biologically formed program that was initially written by our genetic coding and then has been continually augmented from the moment of birth up through every living day. We are directly taught some things, but a majority of what we learn is all about self interpretation of incoming stimulus.

Dr. Korby was sentient. But I believe he discovered that he had lost some of his essence. He became aware that his "soul" hadn't carried over, making him a mere copy. His consciousness was mostly copied, but not completely transferred. That's my take on it... I'm not saying it's fact, because the episode is too ambiguous for a definitive answer.

Korby's is a situation any man could find himself in after, say, major surgery or divorce or loss of job. Is he still the same man? Having factually lost something (say, a leg), is he a lesser being now? Friends have difficulty hiding their revulsion over the visible change - should he wait till that blows over, or is it time to google for "hangman's knot"?

The transformation into a machine man gives this particular take an interesting flavor, but it isn't all that exceptional a situation deep down.

Korby's is a situation any man could find himself in after, say, major surgery or divorce or loss of job. Is he still the same man? Having factually lost something (say, a leg), is he a lesser being now?

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That question is dealt with at some length in the cheaply made but intelligently written Creation of the Humanoids (1962). It's worth a look if you've never seen it.

^...Just in the umbrella sense in which things are considered "racist" today. That is, finding truly racially distinct features in the Irish or the Poles is much more difficult than inventing Irish or Polish jokes.

I suspect that a whole family of segregationist-degradatory subcategories will emerge once humans seriously begin to turn to cyborgs, ranging from the shunning of those with visible alterations to the hatred towards those with invisible mental boosting. But "racist" is still bound to cover most of them nicely.